The Liberals tell us that our violent methods of warfare
against them are not in conformity with the Pope's counsels to
moderation and charity. Has he not exhorted Catholic writers to a
love of peace and union; to avoid harsh, aggressive and personal
polemics? How then can we Ultramontanes reconcile the Holy
Father's wishes with our fierce methods? Let us consider the
force of the Liberals' objection. To whom does the Holy Father
address these repeated admonitions? Always to the Catholic press,
to Catholic journalists, to those who are supposed to be worthy
of the name. These counsels to moderation and charity, therefore,
are always addressed to Catholics, discussing with other
Catholics free questions, i.e., not involving established
principles of faith and morality, and do not in any sense apply
to Catholics waging a mortal combat with the declared enemies of
the faith.

There is no doubt that the Pope here makes no allusion to the
incessant battles between Catholics and Liberals, for the simple
reason that Catholicity is truth and (119) Liberalism heresy,
between which there can be no peace, but wear to the death. It is
certain by consequence, therefore, that the Pope intends his
counsels to apply to our family quarrels, unhappily much too
frequent; and that by no means does he seek to forbid us from
waging an unrelenting stiff with the eternal enemies of the
Church, whose hands, filled with deadly weapons, are ever lifted
against the faith and its defenders.

Therefore there can be no contradiction between the doctrine
we expound and that of the Briefs and Allocutions of the Holy
Father on the subject, provided that logically both apply to the
same matter under the same respect, which holds perfectly in this
instance. For how can we interpret the words of the Holy Father
in any other way? It is a rule of sound exegesis that any passage
in Holy Scripture should always be interpreted according to the
letter, unless such meaning be in opposition to the context; we
can only have recourse to a free or figurative interpretation,
when this opposition is obvious. This rule applies also to the
interpretation of pontifical documents. How can we suppose the
Pope in contradiction with all Catholic tradition from Jesus
Christ to our own times? Is it for a (120) moment admissible that
the style and method of most of the celebrated Catholic polemists
and apologists from St. Paul to St Francis de Sales should be
condemned by a stroke of the pen? Clearly not; for if we were to
understand the Pope's counsels to moderation and calm, in the
sense in which the Liberal conclusion would construe them, we
should have to answer evidently yes. Consequently we must
conclude that the Holy Father's words are not addressed to
Catholics battling with the enemies of Catholicity, but only to
Catholics controverting on free questions amongst themselves.

Common sense itself shows this. Imagine a general in the midst
of a raging battle issuing an order to his soldiers not to injure
the enemy too severely! "Be careful! Don't hurt the enemy!
Attention there! Don't aim at the heart!" What more be said!
Pius IX has given us an an explanation of the proper meaning of
his words. On a memorable occasion he calls the sectaries of the
Commune demons, and worse than demons the sectaries of
Liberalism. Who then need fear to thunderbolt such an enemy with
epithets too harsh and severe? (121)

In vain do the Liberals cite the words of Leo XIII in the
Encyclical Cum Multa, exhorting Catholics to avoid violence in
the discussion of the sacred rights of the Church, and to rely
rather upon the weight of reason to gain victory; for the words
have reference to polemics between Catholics discussing the best
means to preserve their common cause, and by no means apply as a
rule to govern polemics with the sectaries of Liberalism. The
intrinsic evidence of the encyclical proves this beyond cavil.
The Pope concludes by exhorting all associations and individual
Catholics to a still closer and more intimate union, and, after
pointing out the inestimable advantages of such a union, he
instances, as the means of preserving it, that moderation of
language and charity of which we are speaking. The argument is
plain: the Pope recommends moderation and charity to Catholic
writers, as a means of preserving peace and mutual union. Clearly
this peace and union is between Catholics and not between
Catholics and their enemies. Therefore the moderation and charity
recommended by the Pope to Catholic writers applies only to
Catholic polemics between Catholics on free questions. Would it
not be absurd to imagine that there could be any union between
truth and error, therefore between (122) the advocates of truth
on the one side and error on the other? Irreconcilable opposites
never unite. One or the other must disappear.